Chicken Claws

Help me. My arms have gone retarded. I went climbing yesterday with my buddy and after our arms were cramped and useless we went to play some pool. We left early because the pool hall was dead and we figured the bartender wanted us to leave to close out the joint - so we decided to wander to a bowling alley. When we got there, the shoe keeper guy told us they were closing out the joint in half an hour because of the snowstorm…oh did I mention we were out and about during a Seattle snowstorm? My buddy asked if I still wanted to bowl for half hour, I said, “Eh, why not? We could just whale it fast as we can.” Since the bowling alley was also dead, the shoe keeper told us we could just have two lanes and go nuts.

We bowled three of the fastest games ever and I had a pathetic chicken claw for a hand by the end. I kicked my buddy’s ass…and since I’ve never beaten him in bowling before, I rubbed it in really good. Yeah, don’t let me win at anything, I’m a terrible winner. Even if you beat me a hundred times and I manage to win once, I’m going to bring up that ONE damned time whenever I get a chance.

It was obvious everywhere we went that Seattle was shutting down due to the half an inch of snow on the ground but we didn’t want to call it a night…because snow is magical dammit and it’s just nice to be out. The best part was driving through Capitol Hill and seeing all these people outside having snowball fights. It’s fun to read other people’s account of the night:

“so last night about 20-30 people gathered on the intersection of denny and bellevue to cheer on all the cars trying to make it up the hill. lots of older cars spinning wheels and the crowds were yelling in support. no bad accidents, just a couple cars sliding straight into the curbs. best part is when a hummer came charging up the hill at a good speed. the crowd booed loudly and threw a couple snowballs. lol.”

My car got snowballed but my buddy was jonesing for a snowball fight so it was all good and fun. That’s the beauty of snow, it brings out the kid in everyone.
Of course it had to rain during our food run because heaven forbid there should be that much magic in the world.

I just got back from still more climbing with another buddy…typing with chicken claws is a lot harder than one might think.

Lazy Jackass

I promised myself I would sit down and write today as a creative exercise…then I woke up and stuck my hand out to test the air temperature and decided it was not safe to leave bed. Surely I would get frostbites on my feet and would have to have them amputated. Bit dramatic yes, but early-morning-cocooned-in-bed logic tends to weave tragic tales of loss and sorrow if it involves unraveling self from warmth. Then after a good hour of, “I should get up and write,” and “Dear god it’s too fucking cold,” it was time to get up to get ready for work.

Since it snowed pretty heavily last night, with much of the drive home being a major death trap, I checked my email before I got ready. Snow day! The weather actually looks great but I guess all the snow created ice patches everywhere and most of my team opted to stay home. So of course I did a little dance then went downstairs to play Nintendo Wii with my little brother. I beated the crap out of him in boxing and rubbed it in his face (he’s 11, he needs to be taken down).

Then after I ran out of random things I have to do, I finally sat my ass down to write. I’ve been so lazy about writing and laziness causes more laziness which really gets on my nerves. I’m such a sneaky lazy bastard that I piss myself off at times. I still hike every weekend, which leads my friends in believing I’m not lazy, what they don’t realize is, there have been times when I sit at the trailhead parking lot and I have an argument going on in my head about how cold and rainy it is and how there might be snow and ice on the trail…blah blah… Soon as I take the first step on the trail all mental debates end and life is great, but it’s not always easy getting there.

Writing is something I enjoy immensely and it helps to jog my brain a bit in the morning, but like all exercise plans, once you fall out of the habit, it’s a bit tough to get back in. I did notice one thing during my long mental break…I’ve noticed that when I was consistently blogging my brain takes note of everything that happens in my life like I was constantly writing a story about things as I live. When I stopped writing, that note taking voice in my head stopped…like it stopped observing and examining life and quietly lived it which is good in some aspect, but I do buy into the (pompous philosopher quoting jackass alert) Socratic philosophy of "An unexamined life is not worth living."

Still, I have missed you, hope life has been treating you well.

Conditioned Response

Ahhh…yet another long lull in my blogsphere. I finally got around to reading this book that I picked up nearly a year ago - of course it would be appropriately named “The Now Habit”. So far, I really enjoy it.

I think I can relate to it a lot in the sense that lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve got too much to do, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do anything. Yes, vicious cycle to the teeth. I’m supposed to start shopping for a space for my restaurant/lounge/whorehouse that I’m planning to open, but I’ve been dragging ass on it, claiming to be busy or not know where to start…when I’m just plain scared. I’m not sure what yet…one would think the obvious answer is “failure” but I’m not sure that’s it. Procrastination is sometimes an unconscious attempt at dealing with fear. Hmmm, me being scared, this should be interesting.

Today is my boss’ 50th birthday. To congratulate him, a bunch of my coworkers stuffed his office full of balloons – some seven hundred plus of them. He took one look at it and went away for meetings all day. I have the cube right in front of his office and I get the pleasure of hearing random balloons pop ALL DAY. Half-way through the day, I felt like I was part of some kind of Little Albert psychology experiment…where if I would even hear someone bounce a balloon I would cringe. At the end of the day, my boss came back and they had a balloon popping party. The next clown that hands me a balloon is going to get decked, then tied down while I administer nails on chalkboard.